Gervonta Davis says he should be P-4-P like Lomachenko

By Chris Williams: Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis says he doesn’t understand why Vasyl Lomachenko is is a pound-for-pound fighter after beating Jose Pedraza by a 12 round unanimous decision, but he’s not after knocking the same fighter out in the seventh round in January 2017.

As far as Davis (20-0, 19 KOs) is concerned, he should be included in the top 10 pound-for-pound rankings, since he did a better job of beating Pedraza than Lomachenko (12-1, 9 KOs) did. Lomachenko beat Pedraza by the scores 117-109, 119-107 and 17-109. Pedraza won some rounds against Lomachenko.

Davis completely slaughtered Pedraza in stopping him in the seventh round a little less than two years ago. Davis also feels that because so many boxing fans want him to fight the 30-year-old Lomachenko, then it means that he’s good enough to be a pound-for-pound fighter. Fans must feel that he’s good enough to be a pound-for-pound fighter if they see him as worthy enough to fight him. The fans are really pushing hard for the Lomachenko vs. Davis fight, and yet the organizations that create the pound-for-pound rankings don’t want to include Gervonta in the top 10.

“So I fought [Jose] Pedraza, and I stopped him in the 7th round. Loma fought him and went the distance with him. It was a good performance, but he went the distance with him,” Gervonta said to Fighthub. “He’s pound-for-pound #1,so what does that make me? I got to be on pound-for-pound, right or no? They keep wanting me to fight him. So I have to be on the pound-for-pound. Why do you want to see me fight him if I’m not pound-for-pound? They’re not giving me my credit,” Davis said.

Davis brings up a good pound. His superior performance in beating the brakes off Pedraza compared to how Lomachenko did it last December, it should be enough for him to be a top 10 pound-for-pound fighter. Davis (20-0, 19 KOs) is unbeaten, and holds the upper level World Boxing Association Super World super featherweight title. Lomachenko, 30, holds the WBA and WBO lightweight titles, and he’s starting to show signs of slippage in his last two fights against Jorge Linares and Pedraza. Some age is starting to show, as well as injuries, which is obviously tied in with age.

Some fans believe politics are involved with the rankings of some fighters. You hate to think that, but some boxing fans believe that to be case. When you see certain fighters, who promoted by powerful promotional companies, getting ranked ahead of other fighters that aren’t as well connected, it makes you wonder.

It likely won’t help Gervonta to complain about the fact that he’s not recognized by the organizations that put together the pound-for-pound rankings. Gervonta will need to keep winning and hope that they’ll eventually do that.

Davis, 24, says he wants to fight IBF super featherweight champion Tevin Farmer (28-4-1, 6 KOs) in a unification fight before he faces Lomachenko in order to make their fight bigger. Farmer’s promoter Eddie Hearn of Matchroom Boxing says he wants to make the Farmer-Davis fight, but he says he’s had no luck in trying to get Mayweather Promotions to agree to making a fight between them. He claims that they won’t let Davis fight on DAZN, which he would need to in order to fight Tevin. As such, it’s unclear whether a fight between him and Farmer will ever take place in the future. In a perfect world, it would be great if Farmer and Davis could fight each other first in order to have the winner face Lomachenko in a big fight afterwards. But if the different networks they fight on will keep the match from ever taking place, then there’s no point in discussing the idea. Farmer might be stuck in his own lane fighting on DAZN, and the same goes for Gervonta fighting on Premier Boxing Champions (PBC) on SHOWTIME or Fox, and Lomachenko competing on ESPN. These three excellent fighters seemingly unable to face each other due to them being on different networks, and promoted by different companies. Never the less, Gervonta want to be recognized as a pound-for-pound fighter, and it’s going to be interesting to see how long it takes before he’s finally included in the rankings.

“I’d rather fight Tevin Farmer to build it up [Lomachenko fight], because I know I’ll make more money if I fight Tevin Farmer, and then fight [Vasyl Lomachenko afterwards],” Davis said. “I don’t think it should bethe other way around; me fight Lomachenko, and then come fight Tevin Farmer. Another thing; why isn’t Tevin Farmer fighting Lomachenko? He [Farmer] says he’s the best at 130. He’s trying to be friends with Loma. Man, I’m not friends with no boxer or nobody around my weight. So what the hell. You think I’m going to shake hands with everybody. I’m not his friend. If I’m fighting you, I’m trying to kill you, and it can’t be no friends. You’re an enemy if you’re in my weight class,” Davis said.

If Davis keeps fighting guys that Lomachenko previously beat, and looks good in doing a better job of beating them, then he’ll get ranked in the pound-for-pound ratings soon enough. But that still doesn’t mean that Davis is going to wind up fighting Lomachenko or Farmer anytime soon. As long as those three fighters are with different networks and promoters, a fight between any of them likely won’t happen. Amir Khan, a Matchroom Boxing fighter, is fighting on ESPN against Top Rank fighter Terence Crawford, because he wanted to, and he had enough freedom to make that move. There’s not too many other fighters that can do that or would be willing to do it